The shifting odds in favor of more daily record high temperatures being set compared to daily record low temperatures. Click on the image for a larger version. Credit: Climate Central.
by Andrew Freedman, via Climate Central
As the climate has warmed during the past several decades, there has been a growing imbalance between record daily high temperatures in the contiguous U.S. and record daily lows. A study published in 2009 found that rather than a 1-to-1 ratio, as would be expected if the climate were not warming, the ratio has been closer to 2-to-1 in favor of warm temperature records during the past decade (2000-2009). This finding cannot be explained by natural climate variability alone, the study found, and is instead consistent with global warming.
When you look at individual years, the imbalance can be more stark. For example, through late June 2012, daily record highs were outnumbering record daily lows by a ratio of 9-to-1.The study used computer models to project how the records ratios might shift in future decades as the amount of greenhouse gases in the air continues to increase. The results showed that the ratio of daily record highs to daily record lows in the lower 48 states could soar to 20-to-1 by mid-century, and 50-to-1 by 2100.
Andrew Freedman is the Senior Science Writer for Climate Central. This piece was originally published at Climate Central and was reprinted with permission.
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Thanks for this. It is a point I try to make to as many as possible. Certain folks will always try to point out that somewhere there is a cold record being set, but that is irrelevant. It is the ratios that tell the story.
Somehow, these pie charts do get the point across better than just the raw ratios. But perhaps laying them out in direct time sequence would make increase even more clearly visible.
Big jump this year so far!
Maybe this rate of increase will moderate later this year.
Or maybe we will go back to the longer term, somewhat slower trend next year.
Or maybe we are suddenly in a very different climate change regime, with multiple feedbacks kicking in with ever-increasing ferocity.
What’s the Churchill quote about the age of consequences being upon us?
But going back to the ratios:
So we had cold to hot record ratios of:
1 : 1 basically forever
1 : 2 from 2000-2009
1 : 3 (or better) from 2010-2011
1 : 9 so far this year
So not only are the ratios going jumping up exponentially, the are doing so on ever shortening time sequences.
Anyone want to project this into the future (not that such projections can’t lead one astray, of course).
Agreed. I’m not a scientist, but I really think “20:1 by mid-century” is quite unrealistic. 20:1 sounds like where we will be around 2020.
TS
twitter: @Timeslayer_
Given that we have recently come out of a La Nina and a deep solar low, we should be near the bottom of the warming cycle. Instead we are smashing records.
I fear we have gone from ups and downs with a rising trend to ups and pauses. So we shall see what this “not quite an El Nino” brings.
So 20:1 ratios of records 2012/13.
I love the pie charts but, though very experienced looking at graphic representations of quantitative information, found the layout initially confusing, with the faint box around the two circles at left, then the grid of 4 to the right, meant to be read a completely different way (i.e., raster-scanned as it were, left to right and line by line like a text).
The eye tends, I think, to want to divide this grid of 6 into two rows of 3, but this layout cannot be read that way.
More effective might be the initial vertical pair at left, top pie labeled Data Expected With No Global Warming — then the four other pies arranged from left to right in a single row, level with the Actual Data from 1950s pie. The bottom left-to-right row of 5 actual data pies could be loudly labeled ACTUAL DATA.
Something of this sort. Lay it out so that it is almost impossible to mis-read or not comprehend.
Possible modification of the pie charts: Make the size of each chart proportional to the total number of records broken.
I believe graphics like these are the key to getting the climate change message across to the masses. It’s simple, easily digested and can’t be dismissed easily with crap science. The only problem I have is isn’t this article guilty of cherry picking the data that suits its arguement? I’d like to see the graphs going back the last 100 years.
I’m sure the compelling evidence is there but lets do the due diligence and crunch the numbers.
Excellent! I have wanted to see this dramatic info in a graph.
This is US data, is there a source for world data?